Linux Journal: Why Experix?

“I like command strings. I can’t tolerate GUIs that fill the
screen with icons intended to provide information about what they
do by means of little pictures, but need to be equipped with
more-or-less informative messages that pop up if I park the mouse
there long enough. I lack the patience to search through a tree of
pull-down menus when I could have typed a command in half a second.
That’s no way to run an experiment when you need to be thinking
about the science and your sample is expiring. GUIs may be suitable
for a system characterized and simplified to the point where it
nearly all fits on one screen. It definitely does not work for a
complicated, buggy, home-made rig where people always want to do
something I didn’t think about when I wrote the software. And don’t
get me started on the wiring-diagram concept of data
collection/analysis. It’s completely inaccessible to the users and
not at all a natural way to approach most of the problems I have
encountered.

“The success we have had with the old DOS program proves the
validity of my approach, but the platform is now seriously
obsolete. I have built the command interpreter and stack management
systems for Linux, copied or adapted most of the functions in the
DOS program, and introduced concurrent execution of commands
submitted though timers. The graphics, however, are still at a
primitive stage, and the device driver interface is not really
thought out. My purpose in releasing Experix at this point is to
find programmers who want to help me fill in the missing pieces.
You can download the Experix source and help files at
biochem.wustl.edu/~elelab/bm.htm. It runs on Intel PCs, uses
SVGAlib and can demonstrate most of the features discussed
below…”

Complete
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